His Wicked Sins

by Eve Silver

  The girl’s hands moved nervously over her apron, smoothing in small, jerky strokes as she stared down at the ground for so long that Beth thought she would not speak again. At last, she whispered, “Will you fetch her?”

  There was a terrible moment of silence, heavy with unease. Beth looked back and forth between the two, sensing there was some undercurrent of meaning to such an innocuous question. Mr. Fairfax looked hewn of stone, no trace of emotion to be read in his expression or posture.

  “No,” he said, abrupt.

  Baffled by the peculiar exchange, and made wary by it, Beth wondered at the source of it. A memory came to her, of Mr. Fairfax offering her a ride and saying he was on his way to Burndale Academy, and now Beth understood that his errand must have been to fetch someone.

  Someone who—according to the maid—would not come.

  Mr. Fairfax looked at Beth then, his gaze fixed on her with focused intent, and her heart stuttered in her breast. Her breath came a little faster as he stared at her, his gaze inscrutable.

  To call him lovely seemed absurdity, but it was nothing more or less than truth. Despite the hard cast of his features, or perhaps because of it, his face was incredibly appealing, his form equally so. She would be a liar to pretend she did not notice, to pretend that the sight of him did not make the butterflies dance.

  There, she had acknowledged it, an inappropriate fascination with this man. An inexplicable urge to touch him, just for an instant. She could fathom no reason for it, yet here it was.

  The moment spun out, like hot candy pulled from the pot, and then it spun too thin and disappeared. Beth felt the connection snap, and she was left to wonder if it had been there at all.

  His expression told her nothing.

  He made a slight bow and said, “It was my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Canham.”

  With a glance at the sky, he turned and climbed up on the curricle once more. When she tried to catch his eye, intending to thank him for the ride, he did not look at her; instead, he lifted the reins. Strong hands. Confident grasp. He was so brutally controlled that he might have been held up by rods of iron.

  Her body humming with sharp tension, Beth watched as the curricle rolled away and disappeared round the bend, leaving her with a puzzling sense of loss.

  “You mustn’t... oh... you mustn’t...” A glance found the little maid wringing her hands in distress, her gaze alternating in frantic rhythm between Beth’s face and the ground, making her head move up and down like a bobbing cork. Then she spun and looked up at the darkened windows, the ones Beth had looked to earlier when she heard someone howl.

  A quiet distress wove through her, a wariness.

  Mr. Fairfax had come to Burndale Academy, and gone, and whatever errand had brought him here, he had not carried it out.

  Because she had refused to come to him—whoever she was—and he had refused to fetch her. Something about the entire situation was not only odd, but somehow... dreadful. Just as the pewter sky, and the great, looming face of Burndale Academy and the three dead trees that stood like the bard’s three witches swaying in the wind, were all dreadful.

  The maid shuddered once more, then seemed to come to herself.

  “A poor welcome I’ve shown you,” she said. “Miss Percy will not be pleased.”

  “I feel very welcome, thank you. There is no reason to tell Miss Percy otherwise,” Beth replied.

  The tension in the maid’s shoulders eased a little. “Will you come this way, miss?”

  Resolutely navigating her thoughts away from Griffin Fairfax and his mysterious errand, Beth followed the maid up the front stairs and into the house. Pausing, she looked around, dimly aware that the maid circled behind her, drawing into the shadows like a wraith. The entryway was large and rectangular, with dark paneled walls and a floor tiled in a geometric pattern of unglazed clay tiles.

  There was no candle to light the way, the storm-cast gloom making the place less than welcoming.

  A snick of sound issued at her back, and Beth looked over her shoulder to see the girl had turned the key in the lock of the front door.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Alice, miss.” The reply was whispered to the floor.

  “What of my trunk, Alice?”

  “Mr. Waters will see it’s brought to your chamber, miss. He’s a handyman of sorts. Keeps the place in repair. Our Mr. Waters was a sailor once. He says he has seen the whole world...” Her voice trailed off and she shot a quick glance at Beth. “He’ll see your trunk brought to your chamber before the rain comes.”

  My chamber. That was a pivotal point that had drawn Beth to the position of teacher at Burndale Academy. She was promised a room of her own rather than one to share. A true luxury. Many positions required the teachers to share rooms, even beds.

  Beth knew her numerous limitations far too well to imagine she could have borne that. She could just imagine what a fellow teacher would think if Beth bolted upright in the dead of night to light every candle in the room and throw the window open wide.

  “Thank you,” she said as Alice sidled past her.

  They continued along a wide hallway, the walls bereft of adornment, the floors barren of carpet, more of the same red tile. Again, Beth had the impression that Burndale Academy was chill and forbidding, and she felt a momentary pang of homesickness. A deep breath and a silent admonition chased those feelings into a corner. There was no sense wishing for what could not be.

  Her home was gone. The little house with its sun-dappled garden was lost to her family, and the small, dingy flat they had been forced to was no more a home than this unfriendly place. Except that her family was there in that flat, their good society creating a home as it always had, regardless of how stained the plaster walls or how threadbare the carpet.

  Beth reminded herself that she—and her annual income—were now their best hope for survival. She thrust aside her sad musings and hastened her steps to catch up with Alice, who moved like smoke through the shadowy hall.

  There came a loud clap of thunder that made Beth gasp, followed by an oppressive quiet, undisturbed by echoes of children’s voices or squeals of laughter. That quiet weighed upon her, and she walked a little faster, following the maid down the dim passage, the only sound the tap-tap-tap of Alice’s shoes on the wood, and Beth’s a heartbeat behind.

  o0o

  Always, he cherished them.

  Flipping open the lid of his ornately carved pocket watch, he looked at his keepsakes, his treasures. Pretty golden locks of hair. They were his. His to touch. His to fondle. Soft and silky and smooth.

  He had long ago torn out the workings of the watch to make room for these things of far greater import. The watch was quite full. Soon, he would add another precious prize, and the time would come to remove some of the older ones and put them in the special box on the shelf. The box with the little bones. Such tiny bones.

  Fat drops of rain touched his cheeks and brow as he turned his face to the wind. With a grunt, he lifted the reins and set the horses to a fast pace. He had no wish to be caught in a downpour with cold, wet rivulets snaking along his back, his neck, wending into his boots.

  Rain had been his mother’s weather. The rumble of thunder had set her on edge, tensed her shoulders, frayed her temper. She would tug strands of her long, curling blond hair from the knot at her nape, and her lips would move in silent recitation. Those had been the days he kept quiet as could be, hushing his brother, hiding them both away in an unused bedchamber or the attic. Sometimes they hid in the shed by the woods. Sometimes they found a small cupboard to wedge their bodies into, or a chest.

  Invariably, his mother found them, and then she would fetch the strap, a belt, a wooden paddle. Once, she had used the leather bellows from the fireplace simply because it was handy. The leather had been dotted with iron studs.

  She was dead now. They were all dead. His mother. His father. His brother. And so many pretty girls.

  But not Sar
ah. Trusting Sarah, who had been bought with a handful of trinkets.

  The rain was good for something. It would wash away the sticky mess she had put in her hair. Sadly, that would wash away her curls.

  No matter. No matter. Her hair was straight, but silky smooth and a nice, shiny gold.

  He smiled as he thought of touching it. Cutting away another lock for his collection. Cutting away parts of her and listening to her muffled screams.

  Anticipation ratcheted through him as he thought of touching her. Stroking her. Hurting her.

  He took a deep breath, and another, dragging his excitement under control, pulling back the urge to go to her now, to do the deed quickly and feel the rush of power, of lust, of aching, luscious release.

  Slowly, slowly.

  Long ago, he had possessed no finesse, killing them too quickly. There had been that time in Stepney, the tavern just off Ratcliffe Highway...and another in Covent Garden. He shook his head, appalled that those memories were painfully humiliating still. Such ineptitude. Like a green lad with his first woman, he had not held himself in check, had not known how to savor the experience.

  Now, he did his hunting much closer to home, took his time, enjoyed every nuance of the act.

  Enjoyed their terror and their torment, those soft, sweet girls with their pretty gold hair.

  He took the turn at a breakneck pace. The high, two-wheeled carriage rocked to a halt as he sawed on the reins, and the grim sky broke open just as the stable boy rushed to his side.

  Chapter Four

  Wickham Hall, Burndale, Yorkshire, September 3, 1828

  Griffin Fairfax paced the dusty, neglected Long Gallery that spanned the length of the upper floor of Wickham Hall, a hallway of ghosts and memories. Above him arched the barrel ceiling, creating a vast and lonely space wide enough to drive a gig through. The roof and plaster walls had fallen in on themselves at the far end of the hallway, collapsing under the weight of disuse and disrepair, leaving an acrid pile of timber and rubble. The damage was done long before Wickham Hall passed to him, but none in all the years had seen fit to repair it. Including him. The collapsed section was boarded up, but the boards were half rotted and the air was heavy with a rank, damp smell. The smell of decay.

  If he closed his eyes, he could see Amelia here, dancing in a beam of sunshine, spinning faster and faster, dust motes floating about her...

  “Bloody hell.” Both the oath and his footsteps echoed hollowly against the backdrop of the howling storm that rattled the windows and whistled through cracks and crevices.

  Rain beat upon the mullioned windows, a pounding torrent, and for a single, frozen instant, he was tempted to run the length of the hall, to pause only long enough to throw open each window as he passed.

  Let the rain come. Let a flood come in a violent flow to wash the blood from his hands and cleanse this place.

  Of memories.

  Of death.

  He could imagine a great, black wall of water cascading from floor to floor, destroying everything in its path. There would be a certain satisfaction in that, but there would also be an ember of regret.

  Though unentailed, Wickham Hall and all it contained had been in his family for centuries, never changing hands by sale. Perhaps it was time it did. Perhaps he should sell it, leave here. ‘Twould be a wiser, more sane course than flinging wide the windows and letting in the storm.

  All the water in the world would not make him feel clean, would not wash away the guilt.

  Leaning close to the window, Griffin squinted against the storm and the dark, and stared out into the night. At first he saw only his own face, hanging disembodied against the backdrop of black sky. After a moment, he saw beyond that to the shape of the gatehouse wall, its crenellated upper limit jagged against the murky, storm-laden heavens and the sheeting rain.

  Then again, given the weather, perhaps he saw the wall only in his mind’s eye, conjured from memory and nightmare.

  He should tear down the gatehouse, stone by cursed stone. Likely, he should have done that three years ago.

  Should have. Should have. Regret was a pastime for fools.

  Jerking back from the window, he turned away. He had not wanted to come here, had not intended it as he paced the halls of his home like a caged beast.

  Or a madman.

  Was he? Was he mad?

  There were days he thought—nay, days he was certain— that he was.

  With a snarl, he spun, flung out his arm to lash at the porcelain vase on the table by the window. In the last instant, he stopped, frozen, his breath heavy in his chest, the vase untouched, his emotion held in check by sheer will and determination.

  She refused to come.

  He had sat in the curricle by the front door of Burndale Academy and listened to the maid say that Isobel would not come.

  Will you fetch her?

  After what had happened the last time, he most certainly would not fetch her.

  The maid—what was her name?—Alice. She had eyed him warily, as though she expected him to tear her head from her body.

  Bloody hell.

  Isobel was to come for dinner once each week. Usually she was there on the step waiting for him, docile. But once before she had refused to come. It had been a stormy day, like this one, like the one three years ago.

  Last time he had lifted her and carried her to the curricle. She had been a limp doll, unresponsive, her head lolling to the side. But as he had placed her on the seat, she had begun to scream and scream, bloodcurdling sounds that were horrific in their torment. His horses had shied and he had been hard-pressed to keep them from bolting with both the carriage and Isobel behind them.

  He closed his eyes for a moment at the recollection, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Isobel was better away from here.

  Hell, he was better away from here.

  Sometimes, he thought they were best off far away from each other. Perhaps she was the wiser of the two of them, given his current melancholy. He ran his palm along the stubble that roughened his jaw, disturbed by this turn of his thoughts.

  From the floor below him came the sound of the hall clock, a hollow clang. He wanted to break that clock, to tear out the workings, to stop time—

  No. He would not allow himself to free the rage. His anger was too close to the surface tonight, with the storm and the memories heavy upon him.

  Footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned to find Mrs. Ashton, his housekeeper, standing at the far end of the gallery, shadowed but for the glow of her candle. Flickering fingers of light and shadow danced along the walls and darker doorways. Her hand shook, and the flame leaped and swayed, caught by the draft that found its way through the boards.

  He knew why she had come even before she spoke.

  “Sorry I am to bother you, sir—” Her words caught on a sob. “‘Tis my husband’s niece, Sarah. She is gone. Never returned to her work at Briar House after her half day.”

  Briar House. Griffin tensed at her words.

  “Perhaps she has run off with her beau,” he suggested, forcing a casual tone.

  “No.” Mrs. Ashton shook her head. “No, I feel it. As soon as I heard, I thought of the other two, their hair shorn off, their fingers—” She shook her head again, and finished on a whisper. “I fear she is dead.”

  Not yet. Certainty clawed him, sharp and deep.

  “Have searchers been organized?” he asked, though he knew they would not find her.

  “Yes.”

  “I should like to offer—”

  “No!” Mrs. Ashton cut him short, then continued in a quieter tone, though her voice shook, and the words sounded clipped. “I beg your pardon, sir. I mean no disrespect. But I fear that were you to arrive at Briar House, even to offer your assistance, it would” —she drew a ragged breath— “it would...” Shaking her head from side to side, she exhaled in a rush. “I only ask leave to go to my husband’s brother’s home in Northallerton. To offer what comfort I may to the girl’s family.”


  He knew very well what she left unsaid. His presence at Briar House would only make everything worse. Likely, they would have him dragged from the premises. He could not blame them. He could hardly expect Amelia’s parents to welcome him to Briar... they had entrusted their only child to him in holy matrimony.

  And he had killed her.

  There was little else to be said about that.

  “You must go to your family, Mrs. Ashton. Offer what comfort you can.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The housekeeper turned and walked away, her posture stooped, her gait pained, a middle-aged woman made ancient in the space of an hour.

  Griffin closed his eyes, pressed the knuckles of his clenched fist against his temple.

  And, inexplicably, thought of the teacher, Elizabeth Canham.

  Her moon-pale hair.

  Her wide, lush mouth.

  The way she had made him smile.

  o0o

  The bell tolled at half past six the next morning, calling teachers and pupils both to the start of a new day. Awake and out of bed even before the summons, Beth stood by the heavy window curtains and looked out at hammering rain and an angry sky. A gloomy welcome to her new home.

  She was a little surprised to realize that despite the storm, she had slept well, exhausted from her travels, grateful to have finally reached her destination.

  Last night, fatigued by her journey, she had been sorely tempted to fall fully clothed upon the bed. She had seen immediately that the linens and blankets were fresh, a circumstance that made her more comfortable than she might have been. But her nature was uneasy with leaving her things packed in a trunk. She had a preference for order and neatness. So she had put her belongings away on the shelves of the large wooden clothing press in the corner, folding and organizing until she was satisfied. Everything in its place, organized by color and function.

  That chore complete, she had nodded off quickly as she lay in bed, silently revisiting the things she had discussed with her mother before leaving home, preparing and planning for the next day’s lesson, her very first. Unable to brave the full dark in this new and strange place, she had left the rush light burning and drifted off to its small illumination.